About Vikafossen
Vikafossen was another one of those after-the-fact accidental waterfalls that Julie and I noticed during our late June-early July 2005 trip to Norway.
However, we were never able to identify for years until recently.
The key breakthrough was that I managed to finally recover some lost GPS tracks and waypoints, then superposed them onto our Mapsource product for Europe
From there, we correlated photos, notes, and the aforementioned waypoints and tracks with an improved and updated Norgeskart, and that was when I was finally able to associate our photos with what turned out to be Vikafossen.
The falls apparently sat right at the northern head of the lake Jølstravatnet.
This waterfall was at the tail end of our drive through glacier country in a region near Fjærland where we started this part of the drive heading west at Sogndalsfjøra, which eventually ended at the E39 by the town of Skei.
In fact, this waterfall was probably a short distance south of the town of Skei, but we only noticed it from across the lake Jølstravatnet as we left the Rv5 to go on the E39 bound for the town of Førde.
And as you can see from the photo above, it was a beautifully-situated falls fed by the melting icefields above with the serene lake in the foreground and some idyllic homes and farms providing a sense of scale of this pretty obscure but otherwise impressive falls.
Like with most waterfalls we encountered in the country, this was pretty much a roadside waterfall.
We managed to find a picnic area along the highway, and so we took our time photographing the falls across the lake and otherwise basked in the gorgeous weather and beautiful scenery that was quintessential Norway.
When we came back in 2019, I made sure to look for this waterfall knowing that we at least better knew when to start looking.
Indeed, it seemed like only in a country as full of waterfalls as this that a waterfall like Vikafossen could be treated as so mediocre or unremarkable when it would probably get a lot more love elsewhere.
That said, Julie and I felt Norway was one of the most beautiful countries we had ever seen, and a waterfall like this being considered obscure further demonstrated this point.
Authorities
Vikafossen resides in the Jølster Municipality. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website or Facebook page.
Julie and I spotted this waterfall along the Rv5 highway just under 2km south (in the direction of Sogndal) of the Rv5/E39 intersection at Skei.
Going in the other direction, this pullout was about 59km west along the Rv5 of the town of Sogndal.
For geographical context, Skei was about 20km (under 30 minutes drive) south of Byrkjelo, 44km (over 30 minutes drive) east of Førde, 62km (under an hour drive) northwest of Sogndal, 77km (over an hour drive) south of Stryn, 133km (under 2.5 hours drive with a ferry crossing) north of Flåm, and 217km (under 4 hours drive with a ferry crossing) north of Bergen.
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